After listening to the episode regarding the issue, I just thought that I’d share my opinion. To publicly back such a measure as a company is indeed a risky move. Personally, I agree with the measure on moral grounds (those morals highly drawn from religious beliefs). While I disagree with their decision, I am impressed that Apple has chosen to make a stand, since most companies would refuse to even get involved in such matters.

I have nothing against Apple or its employees and fully support equality in the workplace. Any individual is entitled to his or her sexual preference, and their employment, pay, or benefits at work should never have any bearing on their sexual preferecne (with a few exceptions, i.e., marriage counselor or religious leader), but marriage is by definition “the social institution where two members of the opposite sex are joined and recognized as a single entity.” I’d like to point out that this definition is taken from a cultural anthropology course I’ve taken in college rather than a religious background before anyone wants to attack my argument on that basis. Also, before anyone tries saying that homosexual couples don’t get “married”, they enter into a “civil union”, I say this — changing the name doesn’t change the act. Calling a Dodge Charger a tomato doesn’t make it any less of a Dodge Charger. In the words of Shakespeare, “… A rose by any other name would smell as sweet…”

The idea that a same sex couple can be recognized as a single unit and gain all the benefits of a married couple is also demeaning to those that are harassed and/or persecuted because we feel a desire to openly express a more widely accepted sexual orientation. The fact that a homosexual rights group can parade down Main Street with police protection is equally as offensive to many people as a “Straight Pride” shirt might be to that same homosexual group. It becomes another issue altogether when those people who choose to wear a “Straight Pride” shirt are openly approached by the authorities and told that they must leave or remove the shirt, or when an individual is expelled from a public school (actual event — I had a friend to which this happened in California) for the act when that homosexual group files a complaint.